http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
GEORGE W. can't even get a square meal without bumping
a nose or two out of joint.

"Why," asks a troubled reader,
a denizen of Washington's Green
Book (and one of several who
called similarly troubled), "would
George W. take his wife to dinner
at Katharine Graham's, of all
places, for their very first night out
in Washington society? She
surrounded him with all the tired,
old out-of-work liberal
Democratic hacks who think he's a
jerk. You notice that she didn't
invite any of his friends. Doesn't he
know what those people really
think of him?"

Well, yes, he probably does,
but all the little Bushes are taught good manners and good
breeding stays with a man. How can a gent tell a lady no?
Besides, Mrs. Graham is famous for cooking up the best
collards, ham hocks and cornbread on R Street. She often
greets her guests with the evidence on her apron. So we
shouldn't begrudge the man a break from government-issue
cuisine. Besides, women are curious about such things, and
Laura might not get another chance to see the inside of the
Graham mansion.

Another reader sends along a license-plate holder, no
doubt meant to cover up the sophomoric propaganda on the
District of Columbia tags, emblazoned with the legend: "Bush
Administrations: Our Daley Bread Since 1989." (Sounds
fuzzy to me, too.) He appends a plaintive note: "Use it before
W. goes 'kinder, gentler' on us."

Some of George W.'s real friends, the ones who stuck
with him through the Florida recounts when others were
practicing to be gracious losers, notice these little things, and
it makes them nervous. Some of them notice bigger things,
too.

Colin Powell, a good man new to the diplomatic
deceptions of the Middle East, where deceit, double-dealing
and duplicity were invented, returns from his first trip as
secretary of state to announce that the tough talk about
Saddam Hussein was just tough talk. His boss bombed Iraq,
sending Saddam an unmistakable message, and just before he
left for Cairo and points east the general had an unequivocal
message for Baghdad about how it would be absolutely,
positively necessary to resume the inspections for evidence of
nuclear arms-making before there could be any talk of lifting
the sanctions: "Let the inspectors in . . . " he said. "Until
[Saddam] does that, I think we have to be firm. We have to
be vigilant and I will be carrying this message to my friends in
the region."

Powell

Well, maybe not that firm, or that vigilant. Once he heard
the Arab bluster, which is enough to rattle any sane man, the
secretary of state agreed that maybe the sanctions could be
eased a little. But yesterday the Arabs were telling him to
stick it in his ear, and Saddam says he won't allow the
inspectors back under any circumstances.

Christie Whitman, the new administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, sends George W. a
rewrite of what he thinks about global-warming hype. "He
has been very clear that the science is good on global
warming," Mrs. Whitman told interviewer Robert Novak on
CNN. Mr. Novak told her, nicely, that she was wrong and
reminded her that George W. spent a good part of last year
mocking Al Gore's faith in shaky science. Does George W.
know what he thinks, or does Christie Whitman know what
he thinks?

Some of George W.'s friends think they see a pattern.
John Ashcroft goes to Capitol Hill to tell the Congressional
Black Caucus that they know better than he does what he
ought to think of racial profiling. Mr. Ashcroft, sounding as if
he had found a memorandum of talking points left behind by
Janet Reno, says he had talked to his boss about racial
profiling and if Congress doesn't do what the Congressional
Black Caucus tells it to do, why, he'll do it himself.

"This is as big a problem as you can get," he says,
sounding like a thoroughly housebroken attorney general.
Some of us, black and white, thought the nation's security or
finding a cure for cancer or AIDS could be a bigger problem
than dismantling an abusive roadblock on the highway.

You can't blame conservatives for noticing little things.
They've learned that Republicans tend to leap under beds and
jump into closets at the first rumble of distant Democratic
thunder, and it's true that the graveyards of Washington are
full of preppies who imagined they could hustle The
Washington Post. And it's true that George W. is a Yalie,
where arugula and little fish sticks are regarded as
red-blooded fare.

But he's a graduate as well of public schools in Midland,
Texas, where ham, ram, lamb, bull, beef and bear are routine
grub. George W.'s nervous friends should chill out. Let him
enjoy a plate or two of Katharine Graham's collards,
adjusted to Georgetown taste. He's only been the president
for a month. We shouldn't get our feelings hurt. Not
yet.

02/28/01: Who won that war? Best not to look02/26/01: Bonnie & Clod, gifts who keep on giving02/21/01: It's Hot Springs week in downtown Harlem02/13/01: Some of our riots seem to be missing02/07/01: When a hate crime is something to love02/07/01: Lifting a few spoons, cutting a few taxes02/02/01: A few small surprises and a large lesson01/31/01: Serving fried crow in the press mess01/26/01: The gathering storm over Jesse Jackson 01/23/01: A graceless getaway, a graceful beginning 01/19/01: Once more to wave the bloody shirt01/16/01: Bring on the lions, the clowns are ready01/12/01: The dastardly plot to restore slavery01/10/01: Mr. Lott's generosity to the Dems01/05/01: Looking to the past for a bad example 01/03/01: A modest proposal for Arkansas folk12/19/00: The reflexive sneer at George W. Bush12/15/00: Taking inspiration from John Birch12/12/00: It's time to raise high Florida's standards12/08/00: A President Bush, and about time, too12/05/00: Here come the judge --- and he's got a hook11/28/00: Cry no tears for Al, lawyers are the losers11/21/00: The useful loathing of America's sons11/17/00: When this is all over, we spray for lawyers11/14/00: Something murky in the twilight zone